


One Blade Between Us

by NovemberNights



Series: Eyepatch Keith AU [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Blood, Branches off of S5E5, Explosions, F/M, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, I found the "Kosmo" tag, Mother-Son Reunion, Mwahaha, kosmo is a good boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 16:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19406866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovemberNights/pseuds/NovemberNights
Summary: Keith is sent on a mission to meet up with the Blade working in Ranveig's base and bring her back. He knows little of the coming revelations, or that she's not the only one returning with him.Set just after a point in S5E5, this is meant to establish how Keith meets Krolia & Kosmo in my Eyepatch Keith AU.Takes place during year 3 in space.





	One Blade Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> The first of three one shots I have planned involving Krolia. As mentioned in the summary, this takes place during the Paladins' third year in space, and one year before Keith loses his eye.
> 
> Keith & Katie have been a thing for a little less than a year now.
> 
> This picks up directly from a certain point in S5E5, just before Trugg invades the base, but things go differently.

“Trugg’s fleet has touched down. We’re running out of time, come on!” Krolia yells, turning away from the monitor in Ranveig’s control room. Keith follows her into an elevator and wills the doors to close faster as the other Blade operative keys into the elevator’s controls. The last of the base’s defense systems are under heavy fire, instilling a heightened sense of urgency that leaves him feeling restless while Krolia taps at the hidden keypad. He eyes the screen warily, Galran symbols flashing rapidly across its surface.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

Krolia casts a sidelong glance at him and presses a button, “As far away from Trugg as we can get. It’ll buy us time to steal a fighter and get off planet.” She slides the panel covering back into place and straightens up, “The base is locked down. I’m now the only one with access.”

The distant echo of a muffled explosion rumbles through the air, and both Blades cast their eyes in the direction it comes from.

“It’ll slow them down, at best,” Krolia adds.

Keith nods, and the elevator slows to a halt, sluggish doors just as aggravating as before. Krolia takes a moment to lock the elevator, and then beckons Keith to follow her down the corridor in front of them. The lighting on this floor is dimmer than any he’d seen previously, Keith notices while being led through the maze of low-lit hallways. As they continue through the winding passages, he begins to wonder just how far Krolia intends to go, until she stops at an intersecting hallway.

“Why did we stop?” Keith whispers.

Krolia looks at him, then turns her gaze down the hallway to her right, “I have an idea.” She beckons Keith to follow her, then starts silently down the hallway. He can hear something faintly from somewhere ahead of them, like a distant chorus of eerie cries. They sound somewhat animalistic, but beside that, he cannot identify a possible source, and it’s almost unnerving. Almost.

The sounds gradually get louder as they approach, until Krolia turns and jerks her head toward a large, solid looking metal door, moving to place her hand on the access panel. A keypad appears and her fingers shift to type in a code on the glowing purple screen. A quiet click from within the door rewards them, and Krolia wraps a hand around the handle.

“Keep quiet, do what I do. Use your blade if you need to,” she instructs, then pulls the door open and slips inside with Keith in tow. A cacophony of screams and whines assaults their ears, and Keith grits his teeth against the urge to cover his ears. Krolia seems unfazed, however, and casts a critical gaze about the room. 

The room is more like a hallway, lined on each side with heavily barred cell doors. About half a dozen… lifeforms fill the cells, and are the source of the horrendous noises bouncing around the room and out into the hall behind them. The oddly shaped, brightly colored beasts each boast their own array of deadly looking appendages and unusual markings, and are unlike anything in any of the databases Keith’s chanced to look upon. None of the creatures seem to notice the two Blades in the open doorway, too caught up in their own apparent misery. 

Krolia steps up to the first cell on the right, hands moving to undo the set of manual locks ensuring that it stays closed. The creature behind the door looks something like the unfortunate cross between an ostrich and a dragonfly. It screeches and hisses at Krolia, but she ignores it and shifts her attention to the chain links connected to the back wall of the cell. She draws her pistol from the holster at her hip—standard empire issue—and shoots off the ring screwed into the wall. The chains clatter to the floor, prompting more indignant screeches from the creature in the cell. Krolia turns to Keith and gestures at the cell behind him, holstering her pistol before moving to the next cell on her side.

Keith takes this as his cue and turns around to face the cell behind him, which contains a large, bipedal creature with a diamond shaped head and a shaggy mane, with saliva dripping from its many rows of teeth. It growls at him as he steps towards the cell door, and snaps at the bars between it and him when Keith reaches for the locks. Keith huffs an impatient sigh, opting instead to draw his Marmoran blade from its place on his belt. The blade transforms in his hand and he slashes through the locks with a few quick movements. He watches the locks drop to the floor with small clattering noises, and then the sharp pulse of Krolia’s gun firing sounds from behind. Keith looks over his shoulder at her as the chains she’d just shot crashed against the floor as well, and she walks over to him. She appraises the slobbering best in the room with a disdainful glare, then shoots the chain link behind it.

“Good. There’s five left, if they’re all still here.”

Keith gives her an odd look while he moves onto the next cell door, “What do you mean?”

“Some of them have unique abilities. Others have been steadily growing weaker. I haven’t been down here in a while. They may have died.”

Keith nods wordlessly and cuts through the next set of locks, ignoring the angrily buzzing creature inside. He doesn’t wait for Krolia to come shoot the chain, and sidesteps over to the next door. Keith raises his blade up to the locks, but pauses a few inches away.

This cell is silent. He leans a little to the side to get a better view of whatever beast it contains, and through the bars he sees a rounded mound of blue fur. He peers at it, unsure if whatever it is is even breathing, until it whips it’s head up and cranes its neck around to look at him, with its tall, pointed ears in an alert position. The movement rattles the chains attached to one of the two cuffs around its neck, and Keith’s eyes flit to the link bolted into the wall, then back to the creature. Its wolfish face stares at him with fluorescent yellow eyes, pupils rapidly shrinking to an unnervingly small size. It makes Keith hesitate in his movements slightly, but he shakes it off as best he can and slices through the locks, then moves on to the next cell.

As the last of the locks fall away, Keith hears an electric pop that fizzles out following one of Krolia’s shots, and more chains rattle against the floor. He turns his head to look for her, and finds her with her head cocked to one side, staring into the cell with the blue canine creature. She hums and turns toward him.

“That chain was electrically charged,” she notes, eyes seeking out the chains in the last cell. 

“None of the others were?” Keith asks.

Krolia shoots the chain link, “No.” She slides her pistol back into its holster and shifts her body to face the door, “We’re done here.”

Keith nods and steps aside, allowing her space to access the panel on the door. Keith wonders what warrants adding security features inside the room as well, seeing as the creatures are all quite well locked up. Or, had been.

Krolia ushers him through the door and moves to close it, leaving a gap to slide her arm through. Keith hears the security panel buzz happily as it acknowledges her palm scan, and then the flick of a switch. Half a second later the metallic screeching of mechanisms unused to moving grinds into the air, and Krolia pulls back her arm like she’d been stung. She pulls the door fully shut just as quickly, and slams her hand on the external security panel to lock it.

“That’s the last of the locks. Let’s get moving,” she breathes, setting her shoulders back before starting down the hall. Keith follows after her, but they only get a short distance down the hallway when a neon blue light flashes a few yards ahead of them and they stop, the blue canine creature from before appearing with a fizzy popping sound. It shakes out its fur, and lifts its head and turns to stare at them with its piercing yellow gaze. Standing on all four of its legs, Keith guesses its head would likely be level with his hip. Neither he nor Krolia dares to move, watching as the wolfish creature seems to stare past them, then flicks its gaze briefly to Keith, then to the hallway branching away from where it stands. Shaking its head, it turns a slow circle and trots off down the side hallway, claws clacking softly against the floor.

“I think we’re supposed to follow it,” Keith says quietly, once the sound of the spacey canine’s claws is out of earshot.

“What?” Krolia turns her head to look at him a little oddly.

“I just… have this feeling. Come on,” he waves a hand for her to follow him and walks over to the other hallway, peering down its length. The space wolf is nowhere in sight. Keith furrows his brows and stalks off down the hall. Krolia follows, and it isn’t long until another corner comes into view. About ten feet from it, the space wolf pokes its head around the corner, sees them, and stares silently at them as they approach. When they reach the corner, it pulls back and trots over to a solidly built door at the end of the short hall, looking over its shoulder expectantly.

“I’ve only been down here once. It was empty, then,” Krolia states with a frown.

“Maybe that’s changed.”

“Maybe…” Krolia says quietly, and reaches out to place her hand on the panel near the door. It beeps in confirmation, and they hear several mechanical clicks before the door pops open slightly. Keith reaches for the handle and pulls it open, Krolia pushing from the inside as it swings away. The space wolf moves around them and pokes its head into the unlocked room, snorts, then backs up a few paces. Keith steps around the door as Krolia steps back and her eyes widen upon seeing the contents of the room.

“I didn’t know there was this much,” she says, brows knitted.

Keith steps inside the chamber and looks around at the clear tubes of swirling, purple-pink liquid locked into the shelves lining the walls. Probably twenty to thirty of the tubes are there, Keith guesses, peering behind some of them to see others lined up in a row.

“Are these the quintessence from that shipment you mentioned?”

Krolia nods, “Yes. Ranveig only ever showed me one crate of it that was being used for testing, though.”

Keith presses a hand to the curved glass of the tube, “We should take some back to Kolivan.”

“Good idea. We can each carry two. I’ll keep watch in case there are still sentries on patrol.”

“Okay,” Keith says, he and the space wolf watching as Krolia takes up a position by the corner. The wolf sits down and focuses its attention on him, and Keith meets its yellow-eyed gaze for a moment, noting that its pupils are no longer quite so small. He turns back to face the tubes of quintessence, eyeing the locking mechanisms keeping them in place. They look to be an elaborate sort of draw-catch closure, so he returns his blade to its smaller form and slides it into its sheath on his belt. He reaches for the first closure, but stops short when another distant explosion sends shudders through the base. The tubes of quintessence rattle in their place, and Keith sees the wolf’s ears prick up from the corner of his eye. He waits until the shudders subside, then reaches for the closure again.

Keith quickly frees four canisters of quintessence from their locks, and carries two over to Krolia. He feels the wolf’s eyes on him as he hands them off to her, then returns to the chamber to collect the other two. One in each arm, he steps out and looks for Krolia, but doesn’t find her at her post by the corner. He walks out into the intersecting hallway and looks around the corner, spotting her a few yards ahead at their last turn. She motions a hand for him to follow her, and turns around the corner, out of sight again. Keith glances back at the wolf, but finds it has disappeared, and little motes of blue light float around where it had been sitting. Keith huffs, feeling oddly disappointed, and starts down the hallway.

Another explosion goes off, much closer this time, and Keith looks overhead, praying that the structure will hold. He gets to the corner, and sees Krolia at the end of the hall, back where they’d first seen the space wolf. She turns her head both ways, then looks over her shoulder at him, and waves him over. 

Keith starts toward Krolia, but only manages a few steps when he’s knocked off his feet as an explosion just outside their location rocks the base. It blows in a section of the wall, collapsing chunks of the ceiling and several floors above them. Keith ducks his head and hugs the canisters of quintessence close to his chest as his body hits the floor. 

Chunks of the building and steel beams fall down around him, the sounds of groaning metal muffled by the cottony sensation in his ears. His side aches, and he rolls over to shift his weight to the other side, noting that his belt had been sliced off, but finds himself thrown back into the debris around him as another explosion goes off overhead. Metal screeches as something snaps and crashes on top of the beams that crisscross over him, crushing them and forcing other debris through the gaps. A beam snaps and swings toward him, and Keith loosens his grip on the quintessence canisters to bring his forearms over his head. 

The sound of shattering glass causes him to blink in surprise as one of the quintessence tubes bursts and splashes him. It soaks through his Marmoran suit and splatters onto his unmasked face. The quintessence feels cold and wet, sending shivers down his spine. He moves his hands to wipe the liquid quintessence away from his eyes so he can open them. He blinks to clear his vision, and notes that only one of the two canisters is broken. It’s somehow relieving, and easier to think about than the odd, tingling sensation that the spilled quintessence causes. 

Keith rolls onto his back and looks around him in hopes of finding a way to crawl out of the pile of debris. Something by his foot looks loose, and he kicks at it with his heel until the beam above it shudders, and he stops. An irritable groan escapes his lips, and he drags a hand across his face. It's no longer wet from the spilled quintessence, but his skin still feels tingly and he makes a face at his predicament. Katie will not be pleased when he tells her he somehow managed to narrowly avoid being crushed in an explosion.

“Krolia!” he yells, rolling back onto his side. A flash of blue through a gap in the debris catches his eye, and he stares at the spot for a while as a scratching sound starts up. Brows furrowed in confusion, Keith sits up as much as he can and scoots over toward the other wall of his tiny prison of wreckage, closer to the gap in question. Something is moved away then, widening the gap and allowing Keith to see through. A puff of damp, warm air greets his face as the gap suddenly darkens, and a dark, blueish dog-like nose is shoved into the tunnel formed by the debris. Keith blinks in surprise, and the nose is replaced by a large yellow eye surrounded by bright blue fur.

Keith grins, “Hey there, buddy,” he says softly, “Wanna help me out?” 

The wolf blinks, then disappears again as the scratching resumes. After a while the gap gets a bit bigger, and Krolia’s face appears on the other side.

“Keith, are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine. One of the canisters broke and splashed on me though. I feel a little weird and I’m sore from the blast, but nothing hurts.”

Krolia frowns, “Tell me if anything changes. Is your blade in there?”

Keith nods, “Will do. And yeah. Do you need it?”

“I’ll be able to get you out faster with it.”

Keith feels around in the relative darkness inside the wreckage for his belt, and wraps his fingers around the handle of his blade. He slides it out of its sheath and passes it to Krolia.

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Keith says, sitting back to wait. It frustrates him, but that’s all he can do at the moment. Gradually, through the combined efforts of Krolia and the space wolf, the gap gets big enough for Keith to slip through after handing his belt and the remaining quintessence to Krolia. She takes his hand as he crawls out and hoists him up, dusting off his shoulder as she hands back his belt. He takes it and ties the ends together, then slides it over his head and across his chest.

“Thank you. For coming back for me,” he says, tugging on the knot he’d made to make sure the belt was secure.

Krolia takes one of his hands in hers and reverts his blade to its short form before pressing the handle into his palm. Keith looks at her in confusion, questions forming on his lips.

“I left you behind once. I’ll never do it again,” she pauses, giving his hand a squeeze, “Now come on, we need to keep moving.”

Slowly, Keith returns his blade to its sheath and turns to follow Krolia. The space wolf follows him, nudging his hand with its nose. Absently, Keith runs his hand over the wolf’s head and behind the ear.

“Thank you, too,” he says softly, “Let’s go find a ship.”

***

“Krolia,” Keith pauses to breathe, “I take back what I said earlier. I am _not_ feeling well.” He sits down inside the imperial fighter Krolia had just started up, and leans against the space wolf standing next to him. It turns its head toward him and bumps its nose against his cheek.

Krolia climbs up through the hatch in the floor of the cockpit, having already shut the back ramp, “What do you mean?”

“I’m hot and I feel like crawling out of my skin,” Keith explains, pressing a hand to his forehead, “and I think I have a headache.”

Krolia frowns and crouches down in front of him while peeling off one of her gloves. She presses the back of her hand against his temple and hums, “You’ve certainly got a fever. We’ll have you properly treated if necessary when we get back to base. Let me get the ship off planet and then I’ll take a better look. For now, do your best to get comfortable.”

Keith nods and shuts his eyes, leaning his weight into the wolf. He hears Krolia shut the hatch in the cockpit and settle into the pilot’s seat, followed by the roar of the engines warming up. The whole ship rumbles, and soon after the engines are ready, Krolia rolls the ship out of the hangar and maneuvers it for launch.

“Hang on back there,” she calls back to him, then counts down from five. Keith pushes his bangs out of his face, now damp with sweat, and braces himself as the ship rockets up into the sky. After a few minutes, Krolia unbuckles and returns to Keith.

“The ship’s on autopilot for now,” she says, then sits down in front of the younger Blade, “You said the quintessence spilled on you?”

Keith nods weakly, “It soaked through my suit.”

Krolia hums and leans forward, her sharp Galran eyes inspecting him for anything unusual. She lifts her hands near his face, then looks at him hesitantly.

“You may not like this,” she warns, and moves closer when Keith nods for her to continue. She places two fingers around one of his eyes and opens it wide, then turns his head with her other hand.

“Look up, as far as you can,” she instructs. He does, and she moves his head around some more. Next she pokes around in his mouth with a clawed fingertip and tugs on one of his ears, followed up by loosening the collar of his suit to check his pulse while she inspects the back of his neck. While she works, Keith’s mind wanders back to when she’d returned his blade to him. It’d been replaying in his head the whole time, and he finally feels capable of giving voice to the thoughts running circles in his head.

“Krolia…” he starts, while she’s still behind him. 

She hums in a questioning tone, prompting him to continue.

“So you’re… my mom.”

“Yes, Keith,” she says, reaching around to close the clasp of his suit, “I’ve missed you more than you could ever know. And I’m sorry.”

Keith wraps his arms around his knees, and feels Krolia place a hand on his shoulder. He shivers slightly with the cold chills brought on by his fever.

“How long have you known you were half-Galran?”

“About a year and a half. Why?”

“Well. You’re turning purple.”

Keith turns his head and gives her a wide-eyed look of confusion, “What?”

Krolia moves to sit cross-legged in front of him and tugs off one of his gloves, “Look.” She holds up his hand in front of his face. He stares at the splotches of color spreading across his skin like clouds, then scrabbles to remove his other glove. His other hand is in the same state.

“I don’t understand,” he whispers.

“It’s the quintessence Ranveig intercepted. I told you it has… unusual effects. When it spilled on you it must have reacted with your DNA. Somehow that’s activated your Galran genetics, so to speak.”

“You’re sure it didn’t just make me sick?” Keith asks skeptically.

Krolia shakes her head, “No, Keith. There’s other things, too.”

Keith’s brows knit, “Like what?”

“You have a third eyelid, Keith.”

He plants his face in his hands and rubs his temples, groaning in irritation. The space wolf sniffs near his fingers curiously.

“Are you feeling worse?”

“No, I’m just… confused. And frustrated. And I don’t know what else. I’m purple? What?”

Krolia chuckles lightly, “I doubt it’s permanent, though. Look at your hands again,” she says, placing her fingertips on his cheek with a gentle touch.

Keith looks up at her over his own hands, then drags them down his face before dropping his gaze to inspect them. To his further surprise, the inky purple hue is fading back to his normal skin tone.

“Fascinating,” Krolia muses, taking one of his hands and turning it over, “I wonder if you can control it?”

Keith snorts in amusement, “That’d be interesting.” He pulls his hand back and slides it up into the thick fur on the space wolf’s neck.

Krolia sits back and places a hand on his forehead again, “Do you feel any better than earlier?”

“Not really,” Keith mumbles. The wolf leans into his touch slightly, and Keith reaches around to its other side, but stops when his fingers brush against something wet. Withdrawing his arm earns him a disappointed look from the wolf, but he’s more concerned with the dark bluish fluid on his fingertips.

“Hey, uh, Krolia?” he asks, “I think the wolf is bleeding.”

“Where?”

Keith turns and shoves both hands into the wolf’s fur, parting it around the spot he’d felt the blood at. A small puncture wound is visible, with the same, half-dried blueish blood smudged around the edge.

Krolia frowns and touches a finger to the area gently, and runs her hand around the wolf’s neck, counting several other, similar wounds, “You’re right. It was wearing two collars, correct?”

“Yeah. None of the others had that.”

“One of them was electrified. None of the others had that either, and I didn’t know about it. I did, however, know that Ranveig had a special cuff made with quintessence sensitive spikes in it. One of the creatures could teleport, I’d been told, and it was supposed to deter it from making use of that ability. Evidently it wasn’t enough, hence the electric collar.”

“That’s understandable, however cruel.”

Krolia hums, sliding her hands up behind the wolf’s ears and rubbing the fur there back and forth, earning an appreciative lick on her cheek, “Are you planning on keeping it?”

Keith quirks a tired eyebrow at that, “I was thinking about it.”

“It’s not a bad idea. When we get back to base I can run its DNA through some tests and see if we can’t determine its species or sex. Might be difficult since it’s from the Quantum Abyss though.”

“That’s a good point.”

“I’m curious as to what you’ll name it.”

Keith hums thoughtfully, then shrugs, “I’m sure something’ll come to me.”

“I would suggest Yorak,” Krolia says, turning to look at the wolf for any sign of response. The wolf remains silent, its gaze focused on Keith.

Keith gives his mother a flat look, “Yorak?”

“It’s a good Galran name,” Krolia defends playfully, “Though your father wasn’t a fan.”

Keith looks away and scratches idly behind the wolf’s ear, “...I can see why he might think that.”

A wistful smile drifts across Krolia’s face for an instant, and Keith doesn’t have the heart to tell her. He makes a mental note to bring it up at a more appropriate time, and leans against the wall, running a hand along the wolf’s back.

“I’m sure Katie will have some interesting ideas,” he muses.

This prompts a surprisingly smug eyebrow raise from Krolia, “Katie?”

Keith feels his face heat up, “Ah, she’s, my—uh, she’s pretty great, um—” he starts, but finding himself stammering out a response, he slaps a hand over his mouth, flustered. Krolia’s soft chuckles of amusement float around the cockpit of their stolen imperial fighter as Keith buries his face into his hands with an embarrassed groan.

_Are all mothers like this?_

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being longer than I initially anticipated, but I think it turned out well!
> 
> Kosmo is a Good Boy :) Keith & Krolia take him back to the Blade base & get his cuts patched up & Kosmo proceeds to be glued to Keith's heels like a shadow, haha.
> 
> So this also introduces how Keith is able to shift to a more Galran appearance and back. I wanted to make it more... biological, I guess, than just "wow suddenly he's totally Galra." Not that those takes are bad or uninteresting, I just tend to think more analytically so I like this more, and it was a fun challenge to figure out how it'd work.  
> -In general, I thought about how sometimes external... uh, stimuli, i guess, and there was the whole "funky quintessence" thing going on, so I thought that could be a good way to like... activate. his genes. or something. idk.  
> -Skin. I thought about octopuses and chameleons & such, and also how people tan. So basically he's got a secondary pigmentation??? sureeeee.  
> -The third eyelid. Galra either have totally yellow eyes, or yellow sclera (rather than white). How do they do this? Idk. So what if maybe they just have a third eyelid that's yellow and transparent and filters certain types of light (since they seem to like dark... & purple). And maybeeee those that seem to have solid yellow eyes just have lighter or yellow colored irises & such?  
> -probably some other minor things as well that i haven't put much thought into :P


End file.
